Linguistic Pet Peeves

I find this amusing, that on a board largely dominated by evolutionists that people would be objecting to what might be called the evolution of language. Well, maybe not, I don't know, we all have our various peeves and there are certainly some things that make my teeth gnash.But I also feel any mostly objective examination of language reveals that it is subject to its own form of evolution. Think about it, we don't even come close to speaking the English of Chaucer's time, or Shakespeare's time. Hell, we should go back to the Norman invasion and stop what was the unholy crossbreeding between English and French. Grrr, what were they thinking?

Now I've gotten to see that you've already been pointing these sorts of things out.For us English speakers, one of the most easily observed examples of our language evolving is in the frequent appropriating of nouns into verbs. Some recent examples include fax, originally one only received and sent faxes; text (thanks to cellphones), I will text you what to get from the store; and many other various words from our technological boom. For older examples, think of your body parts like arm, head, leg, stomach and so on. Nouns that got turned into verbs.Personally, I think one of the more depressing aspects of the silly Latin-based grammar rules that were developed in the 18th century was the attempt to wipe out the use of the double negative. A double negative isn't like math--that's just silly. A double negative, like in other languages, is an intensifier, a way for the speaker to intensify the meaning.I can't get no, sat - is - fac - tionis a much more intense song than I can't get any satisfaction.

quote:

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"Man he was pissed", the clerk said "I tell you he chewed my ass off. I mean he literally chewed my ass off".

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I too am not pleased by the change of literal, but would ask one to consider it as a case of a shift in meaning. The speaker here is conveying how intense the ass-chewing was compared to just a regular ass-chewing.Literally one day no one will notice the difference.